Sleepy Head | Mark Billingham

Sleepy Head
by Mark Billingham
pub: Sphere
design: Duncan Spilling
405 pages

Alison Wiletts is a killers success story, the only one of his victims to survive the comlex procedure that leaves her trapped inside her own body.

DI Thorne is convinced he knows who the killer is and determined to prove it while his colleagues strugle to maintain their faith in his impartiality.

Billingham holds tension throughout, throwing a moments doubt in the readers mind just often enough to make Thorne's pursuit a genuinely anxious one. Alison's inner monologue adds humour and humanity to the murders in a way that many books over look, focussing on the killer and the pursuit. Every so often between chapters we get a coule of pages of Alison talking in her head, 'They clone sheep, for Christ's sake, which is the most pointles thing ever since how the bloody hell are you supposed to tell when every sheep looks like every other sodding sheep and THERE'S NOTHING REALLY WRONG WITH ME!'. It also adds a level of frustration, the feeling that if only she could comunicate at all Alison could resolve everything.

Thorne is likeable, indulging in some petty harrassment, attracted to the victims Doctor, a little self absorbed and determined to get justice for the victims, who he pop up in his head to keep him focussed 'Are you going to let him get away with this shit, Tommy?'.

The reader also gets the killers thoughts from time to time, the deliberate manipulation of Thorne, the game. The attempts to get the procedure right and the anger that some of the girls just don't fight hard enough. Never quite enough to be sure of his identity, but it makes the novel more interesting, seeing both sides of the dance.

I'd heard a lot of good things about Billingham, been assured I would love him and want to read the rest. Dead right. Sleepy Head is a fantastic crime novel and I am looking foward to reading more from the Tom Thorne series.